VERSION

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

HTML::FromText converts plain text to HTML. There are a handful of options that shape the conversion. There is a utility function, text2html, that's exported by default. This function is simply a short- cut to the Object Oriented interface described in detail below.

METHODS

new

Constructs a new HTML::FromText object using the given configuration. The resulting object can parse lots of objects using the parse method.

Options to new are passed by name, with the value being either true or false. If true, the option will be turned on. If false, it will be turned off. The following outlines all the options.

Decorators

metachars

This option is on by default.

All characters that are unsafe for HTML display will be encoded using HTML::Entities::encode_entities().

urls

This option is off by default.

Replaces URLs with links.

email

This option is off by default.

Replaces email addresses with mailto: links.

bold

This option is off by default.

Replaces text surrounded by asterisks (*) with the same text surrounded by strong tags.

underline

This option is off by default.

Replaces text surrownded by underscores (_) with the same text surrounded by span tags with an underline style.

Output Modes

The following are three output modes and the options associated with them. They are listed in order of precidence. If none of these modes are supplied, the basic decorators are applied to the text in whole.

pre

This option is off by default.

Wraps the entire text in pre tags.

lines

This option is off by default.

Preserves line breaks by inserting br tags at the end of each line.

This mode has further options.

spaces

This option is off by default.

All spaces are HTML encoded.

paras

This option is off by default.

Preserves paragraphs by wrapping them in p tags.

This mode has further options.

bullets

This option is off by default.

Convert bulleted lists into unordered lists (ul). Bullets can be either an asterisk (*) or a hyphen (-). Lists can be nested.

Convert paragraphs identified as headings into HTML headings at the appropriate level. The heading 1. Top would be heading level one (h1). The heading 2.5.1. Blah would be heading level three (h3).

title

This option is off by default.

Convert the first paragraph to a heading level one (h1).

tables

This option is off by default.

Convert paragraphs identified as tables to HTML tables. Tables are two or more rows and two or more columns. Columns should be separated by two or more spaces.

The following options apply specifically to indented paragraphs. They are listed in order of precidence.

blockparas

This option is off by default.

Convert indented paragraphs to block quotes using the blockquote tag.

blockquotes

Convert indented paragraphs as blockparas would, but also preserving line breaks.

blockcode

Convert indented paragraphs as blockquotes would, but also preserving spaces using pre tags.

parse

my $html = $t2h->parse( $text );

Parses text supplied as a single scalar string and returns the HTML as a single scalar string. All the tabs in your text will be expanded using Text::Tabs::expand().

FUNCTIONS

text2html

my $html = text2html(
$text,
urls => 1,
email => 1,
);

Functional interface that just wraps the OO interface. This function is exported by default. If you don't want it you can require the module or use it with an empty list.

require HTML::FromText;
# or ...
use HTML::FromText ();

Subclassing

Note: At the time of this release, the internals of HTML::FromText are in a state of development and cannot be expected to stay the same from release to release. I expect that release version 3.00 will be analogous to a 1.00 release of other software. This is because the current maintainer has rewritten this distribution from the ground up for the 2.x series. You have been warned.

The following methods may be used for subclassing HTML::FromText to create your own text to HTML conversions. Each of these methods is passed just one argument, the object ($self), unless otherwise stated.

email

underline

Underline things between _underscores_ when underline option is turned on.

Should operate on $self->{html}.

Return value is ignored.

bold

Bold things between *asterisks* when bold option is turned on.

Should operate on $self->{html}.

Return value is ignored.

metachars

Encode meta characters when metachars option is turned on.

Should operate on $self->{html}.

Return value is ignored.

Output

The output from HTML::FromText has been updated to pass XHTML 1.1 validation. Every HTML tag that should have a CSS class name does. They are prefixed with hft- and correspond to the names of the options to new() (or text2html()). For example hft-lines, hft-paras, and hft-urls.

One important note is the output for underline. Because the <u> tag is deprecated in this specification a span is used with a style attribute of text-decoration: underline. The class is hft- underline. If you want to override the text-decoration style in the CSS class you'll need to do so like this.